


A Little Love

by Sofia (netweight)



Series: The Buffy/Spike/Angel Series [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, F/M, M/M, Mild Gore, Past Relationship(s), Post Season 6, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-11-30
Updated: 2002-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-22 08:24:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/netweight/pseuds/Sofia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spike tells Buffy of his Turning. Some truths surface. Some she has to figure out for herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Love

_They were four, and he was a part, they were Pride and Pack_

_fuck the vampires as solitary hunters crap. Forever is long. Forever is lonely. Forever is so godamn fucking *quiet*._

_fuck the pain that came with it all. It doesn't hurt nearly so bad when the hand that beats you caresses you afterward. Doesn't shame nearly so much when the words that fall as easy as the whip are so pure, so sweet, so full of love..._

_"You bleed so pretty, William. So godamn pretty."_

In "Of The Beast II: Spike", by Kita

* * *

  
They're right back at where they started.

The soul doesn't seem to make a difference. It's like she's angry that it happened. No soul meant no need to deal with the consequences of her actions. She could just ignore him, shut him out without any burden on her conscience. Just a demon who tried to rape her, why the fuck should she care about him?

But no, he had to make a mess of things all over again. Gave her too much to deal with – _another_ vampire with a soul. _And we all know how well that went last time!_

He suspects that's the real problem. But he's not _him_ , can't she see that? The soul didn't just happen to him, he went and got it so that she could see how much he loves her.

He doesn't mind the violence. He takes it as punishment, a way to atone for the one-hundred and twenty years of blood and mayhem – all those crimes, all those deaths.

To be near humans is almost unbearable now – their heat scorching, the beat of their pulse deafening, their living scent maddening. But, no matter how the soul may cringe, the demon still rages within, singing sweet songs of violence.

He deserves all that she does to him.

At least that's what he tells himself. Forget that's the way you like it, forget it's the way you were made to like it. _No, don't remember that. Just ignore it, it will go away._

Who said that having a soul means you can't lie to yourself?

 

She knows this is wrong. Bad, bad girl. But she can't help it. It's so easy to just let go and let her instincts loose – vampire, kill. And besides, he'll heal. She makes sure the injuries aren't too severe.

 

They try to be honest. But it's so difficult. Too much baggage.

She's the one who always starts the conversations now. Kind of a way to apologize for the cuts and bruises. _See, I care!_

But he doesn't say much of anything these days. It's awful to see him so quiet. Not natural. Unnerving. She wants to grab him by the shoulders, shake him and shout at him. _Snap out of it!_

That would be too cruel, she's aware of it. But she's growing restless by the day. And she misses his voice. Funny, that. Egotistical too.

If he doesn't say something soon, she's going to make him.

 

It all starts out pretty innocently.

"You know, you don't look that changed."

He just shrugs his shoulders.

"A lot less chatty but that's about it."

She waits for a reaction but there isn't one.

"You don't act like Angel."

His head turns swiftly and he eyes her suspiciously.

"It's hard to remember you have a soul. With him it was easy – you could always tell the difference."

"Could you now?" A bit of sarcasm – a glimpse of his old self. She presses on.

"Yes. By the way he acted. His face, his eyes. Even the voice was different. Not you."

Pause.

"You're the same as you've ever been."

And that does it.

"Stop that! Stop comparing us! We're not the same! And how would you know what he's like, anyway? Three years with Soulboy and you think you know him? You ain't got a clue!"

"And I suppose you do!"

"Yeah, I know him. Better than you think."

"By all means, let's hear it!"

"No."

"Bring it on, Spike! Thought you'd jump at the chance. Afraid you can't deliver?"

"No. I just don't want to talk about it." _Don't listen to her_ , he tells the inner demon, _she's just trying to provoke you_.

"What's the matter? Never seen you back down before!"

"Just let it go, Slayer!" He makes a supreme effort not to growl at her.

"No. I want to know and you _will_ tell me."

They stand confronting each other. She's angry now, a determined look on her face that indicates she'll have it her way, no matter what. Arms at her sides, fists starting to clench, itching for a fight – Slayer mode.

 _God, she's not gonna leave it alone!_ He runs both hands through his hair, looking for a way out.

"Tomorrow, ok? We'll talk about it tomorrow."

She has distrust written all over her. Same way she looked before he went to Africa. He feels the same pain too.

"I'll hold you to it."

She leaves without another word. He's left hugging himself, staring into the void.

_Hate you, Angel. Angelus. Whatever you call yourself these days! Hate you so much! Even now, you're still between us, dividing us._

The demon lashes out. _Should've killed him when you had the chance. Don't know why the fuck you didn't._

 _Liar_ , says the soul.

 

When she comes back the following night, he's dead drunk. She feels the urge to slap him around, no, kick the shit out of him, beat him till he's black and blue on the floor and unable to move. He's the most infuriating creature she's ever met.

"You'll never change."

"Part of my personal charm."

"I'll come back when you're sober."

She turns to leave but he catches her arm.

"No, you wanted to talk, let's talk."

"You're drunk, Spike."

He smiles a sad little smile.

"Not drunk enough."

 

So they talk. If you can call it talk – he speaks, she mainly listens. To everything.

And it is so much more than she was prepared to know.

___________________________________________________________________________

  
"Did I ever tell you how I met them? It was by pure accident - a fluke, a coincidence. You could say I stumbled upon them. Dru would have called it fate. Who the fuck knows?"

She nods, remembering the night she asked him to tell her how he killed his two Slayers.

"Drusilla found you."

"So it was – my dark princess. She was so beautiful... I think I fell in love the minute her eyes locked into mine."

She wants to say it was only the hypnotic trance. But she doesn't.

"And when she came and held me.... Do you know how you feel the first time you're held by a vampire, when you feel the unnatural strength and ..."

He stops and tips his head to one side, staring at her, pondering.

"No, I guess you can't know. You were already a Slayer the first time you met one of us, weren't you?"

She flinches but only slightly – it's like he's saying she's no lesser monster than they are. He notices but makes no comment. Carries on.

"You don't know whether to be dumbstruck that such things actually exist or terrified that you have a demon sucking the life out of you. That's why victims are so easy to take." He states this with no visible show of emotion.

"At least that's the way it was with me."

___________________________________________________________________________

  
_He_ was there with her. She never got out alone back then - they were always around.

"What's that you got there, Drusilla?"

I felt the fangs leaving my neck before she answered.

"Look, Daddy, it's _him_. My knight!"

That voice spoke again in an exasperated tone.

"If it isn't that clumsy little blond! Teaching him a lesson, are we?"

I was pulled up from her arms and held upright. My head lolled backwards because I didn't have the strength to keep it up.

"Pretty thing, isn't he? Let's have a taste."

I blacked out when I felt the second pair of fangs ripping into my neck.

 

I woke confused and not knowing where I was. Lying on an unfamiliar bed. I opened my eyes. Huge bed. Dark wood. I looked around, straining to make out the rest of the room but the only light came from the fireplace. An old town house, considering the size of the hearth and the furniture. Most of the place dwelled in the shadows.

But it was warm, so warm and it felt so good. It was so hard to think and keep my eyes focused. I felt so tired, so sleepy, just lie back down, the comforter is so thick you can just sink back in, just turn a bit –-

Golden eyes in the shadows. _Watching._

I froze, suddenly wide awake, fear in the pit of my stomach. _Where am I?_ And what was that dampness in the side of my neck and when I reached my hand to it and looked at it, I saw it was _blood_ and it was _mine_.

Low rumble in the dark, like the sound of a very large cat. A faintly amused sound.

And it all came back to me. The alley, the strange woman and she bit me and he came and he did it too! _No, that's impossible! Don't be stupid, William! Think, for once!_ But I looked at my hand again, at the blood on it, and then again at _those eyes_ and I tried to reason, struggling to accept that it had really happened and that they were oh God! _Vampires_ , it had to be! _This isn't real, it can't be real, it must be a dream, wake up, *wake up*!_

I jolted upright and I knew it wasn't a dream. The golden eyes were still peering at me and I could see the dim outline of a human figure. The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.

"What are you?"

"Don't you know?" (Calm voice, normal, except...)

"Vampire."

"Yes." (...except there was an edge to it...)

"What are you going to do to me?"

"What do you think?" (...something wrong, something...)

"Kill me."

"Most likely." ( _...malevolent._ )

He walked a few paces, approaching the bed.

"Not right away, of course. We'll have some fun first."

"What do you mean?" Images of satanic rituals and sacrifices filled my head – too many gothic novels. I was such an innocent.

He laughed.

"Such a pretty thing as yourself deserves to be flavored."

Comprehension hit me like a punch in the gut. _No, he can't possibly mean it!_ But he did. Even one as inexperienced as I could discern the lust in his voice.

_This can't be happening, I don't deserve this I don't want to die like this! God help me!_

At times like that you pray. All the doubts you might have had about your faith in God don't even cross your mind because, lo and behold, before you stands the Devil. What further proof do you need? There _has_ to be a God. There has to be _someone_ with the power to save you from such things. Old childhood prayers to saints and guardian angels slip forth from your mouth instinctively.

But no one's listening.

And the only answer comes from the Devil himself.

"What's that you're saying, boy?" he asked as he stepped into the light. Big, he was so big. Dark hair and pale skin and mean eyes. He grinned as he reached out his hand and effortlessly pulled me into his iron embrace. He laughed outright when I struggled to escape.

"That's right, boy - fight me."

And I tried but Christ, he was so strong and I knew it was a lost battle when he held me tighter, so close that all my body was pressed against him, arms encircling me, mouth in my ear whispering low.

"I'll be the only angel you'll ever meet. _Your_ Angel of Death."

And then he pushed me unto the bed, ripped my clothes off and fucked me senseless.

___________________________________________________________________________

  
She draws in her breath sharply. He gives her a condescending look.

"What, not what you had in mind? Your precious little Angel raping yours truly? Well, it was the first time but it certainly wasn't the last."

She gasps. His mind clears momentarily from the alcohol. He's been drinking steadily throughout the entire tale – whiskey, second bottle and counting.

"Look, I shouldn't be telling you this."

"No, go on. I want to know." She _needs_ to know, feels it's crucial, though she doesn't know why.

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

___________________________________________________________________________

  
In the end there was blood everywhere – soaking the bedsheets, even spattered on the walls. I remember that image vividly – my blood on the walls.

Seemed there wasn't a piece of me that didn't scream out in agony. Didn't know people could be in so much pain and live through it.

"You hurt so beautifully, boy."

_No, no don't do it again!_

He licked the crimson trails off my skin.

"And your blood.... Such sweet blood. Such innocence. Such longing. Such despair."

I was floating in and out of consciousness.

"Kill me." I remember begging, my voice so broken I could barely recognize it as my own. And it seemed such a sin, to give up on life like that, to ask the Devil to finish the job. Even knowing I was going to die anyway.

"Now, that would be a waste, boy. I wonder what would happen if I were to keep you. How sweet would your blood be _then_?"

_What's he talking about?_

_Don't worry, it will all be over soon._

And that was strangely comforting, though I didn't know whether it was my own thought or his words.

 

When I felt the blood trickling into in my mouth I just swallowed. Unconsciously, really. I swallowed so I could breathe – it's so hard to breathe when your ribs are broken.

But that first taste sent me spinning. I felt it rolling over my tongue and burning down my throat. Thick and hot. So _hot_. Laced with lust and power, the pain quickly fading as he cradled my head to his chest, his hands tangled in my hair, pulling at it ever so slightly, his thumbs occasionally stroking my cheekbones and, I swear to God, when he started purring I forgot about everything and dived into the feeling of that blazing essence and drank him in.

 

There's a world of emotions in the blood.

_~~I want you~~_

A disarray of colors flashed beneath my eyelids and I felt my body lifting, weightless, higher and higher.

_~~I'll have you~~_

Ecstasy rippling through every fiber of my being for what it felt like forever before I finally collapsed into nothingness.

And all the while the blood bid

_~~Come~~_

___________________________________________________________________________

  
Trapped.

No air.

Small box.

Something I must do, somewhere I must go.

_Must get out._

_NOW._

___________________________________________________________________________

  
"I hate closed spaces."

He stares at his hands. She wonders how they must've looked after he clawed out. Like hers, maybe? Soiled and scratched, no skin on the knuckles and small bits of flesh missing beneath the broken fingernails?

She stares at her hands too. How normal they look now.

"I don't remember much of the trip home. It's the only part I don't remember, you know?"

And that means he remembers the coffin.

She asks no questions.

"It's all a haze really. I remember being stripped and laid on a table and knowing that I was being watched, but not minding, not paying attention because I'd gotten hurt when I climbed out. Got all these splinters in my chest – hurt like hell, let me tell me you. Stupid thing – one would think that vampires would be smart enough not to bury their fledglings in coffins made of _wood_. One would expect them not to use coffins at all – hell, it makes no fucking difference! But _no_ , the members of the frigging Order of Aurelius had to make things according to tradition. Fucking bitch!" he mutters while lighting a cigarette. He inhales the smoke and continues through clenched teeth. "You know what she said while I was lying there feeling my flesh knit together?"

___________________________________________________________________________

  
"We should kill him."

"No."

"Be reasonable."

"I said no."

"Look at him, Angelus! He's a pathetic excuse for a vampire!"

"He's my Childe and I said no, Darla."

"And why not?"

"Drusilla wants him."

I opened my eyes to see him speaking with a pretty blonde woman who looked furious. He wasn't looking at her – his eyes were glued to the healing bruises on my chest.

"And you?"

Sadistic grin directed at me.

"He'll have his uses."

The woman's eyes seemed to spit fire. She turned and stormed out of the room, shutting the door so brutally the wood actually cracked.

He sighed with annoyance.

"Now we'll have to replace the door."

Then he turned to me.

I wasn't afraid. Odd, that. My feelings could be summed up in simple words. _I want to kill him._ Slice his skin with a knife, crush his skull against the floor, rip his heart out and lick the blood...

_The Blood._

My mind went blank at the thought.

That's why I was taken by complete surprise when his hand sneaked behind my neck and pulled me so close his face was mere inches from mine. I tried to push him away, feeling new strength in my arms as I did so, but he didn't budge. _Son of a bitch, I'll wipe that smirk off your face --_

"You want to kill me, do you, boy?"

I remained silent but there was no need to answer. He chuckled.

"You'll get to try. It will be fun."

And then he did the most unexpected thing. He kissed me full on the mouth. I'd never been kissed before. And, somehow, not even the fact that he was male – not to mention all the stuff he had done the night before - repelled me. In fact, there was a pull to it that was impossible to resist. I parted my lips, letting him claim me with tongue and teeth.

When he drew back, I looked up at him dazzled. The smirk widened.

"Oh, yes. It will be such fun."

From the corner of the room came a childish voice.

"Can I play with him now, Daddy?"

And so it began.

___________________________________________________________________________

  
"God, you must hate him."

"Ah, that's the irony of it all. In the end, love and hate are very much the same thing."

Her mouth falls agape - she doesn't know whether to be astonished or horrified.

___________________________________________________________________________

  
At the beginning, I fought him.

"Let go of me, you bastard!"

He didn't mind.

"Wouldn't be half as fun if you didn't fight, Will."

After a while the rush of the violence gets to you. You start to like it. You start to crave it. The fight gains new meaning. Foreplay. That's vampires for you. And it's such a kick to be wanted like that. A kind of power, if you think about it. And he could make it very enjoyable – when he wanted to. Oh yes, he could make me scream like no one else ever could. And always, there was the promise of that blood humming in his veins. _Sire blood._

___________________________________________________________________________

  
"Never had it better till you came along. And you do it just like him. That's right, Slayer. You beat me and you fuck me. I've been here before. Nothing new at all."

He stops to light up a new cigarette and looks her in the eye before he finishes.

"It's the story of my fucking unlife."

She hears the unspoken words.

_So give it to me. Make your hands into fists and hit me. Hurt me. If that's what it takes, I don't mind. Just make it better afterwards._

And there's the promise of her blood now, isn't it? _Slayer blood._ He could kill her and just take it all – how many times has she lain defenseless in his arms? But he won't do it. He prefers to continue this fucked up game they've got going – hop on board, let's go for another ride.

How sick is _that_?

She doesn't want this, doesn't want to be another piece of the twisted puzzle. She struggles to find something to break the spell.

"Is that all?"

He shrugs his shoulders – that movement that's so purely his.

"Pretty much. I could tell you of the things we did. Of the nights we spent drinking and gambling in taverns and brothels. Of going to fancy parties and the theater. Of the travels."

"I could tell you of how we hunted together and killed together. I was a natural. Too much repressed anger. Too much repressed everything, I guess."

"And with him as a mentor there was no other way things could go. You either learned or you died. He had other Childer over the years, did you know that?"

She shakes her head.

"Yeah, well, they never lasted long."

 

Doesn't tell her they were always fair-haired and blue-eyed. Like him and like Darla. Doesn't tell her of Darla's fits of rage and of how she took the whip to him when it happened. _Your fault, whelp!_

Doesn't tell her of the murderous glee in Angelus' eyes when he tore the heart right out of that girl's chest, the one with the beautiful hair – a mane of curls that reached the small of her back. Just a few weeks out of the grave and already -- _you bore me_.

Such a pity, all that fine golden hair turning to dust. What was her name?

He doesn't remember. He remembers not being able to lift himself off the bed that night, though. He remembers Drusilla having to help him out because Angelus had taken so much blood not even the smaller cuts were healing.

Doesn't tell her how it felt to have the orgasmic bliss drunk out of him by the creature that made him or of the unspoken pledge that the fate of that girl was not his to suffer. _Never ever._

Doesn't tell her that the memory of that night still causes his knees to weaken.

No. Certainly doesn't tell her _that_.

Puts on his best casual look and continues.

 

"Not me. I fit right in. He wanted to teach me how to be a better killer? I was only too eager to learn."

She watches him with round eyes. How can he say these things?

"Unlife was wonderful. If I managed to stay out of that crazy bint's way. Only reason why she didn't stake me was because that would've displeased her 'darling boy'." A snort of disgust. "Not that that ever prevented her from beating the crap out of me whenever he wasn't around."

He pauses.

"He hated that. You should've seen the fights they had over me. And it wasn't like she didn't have the prerogative to do as she pleased, being his Sire."

"Do you think he loved you?"

_None of your fucking business!_ It's the first thing he wants to shout at her.

But that's not true.

He considers her question and wonders how to explain - he's not sure he can to someone who isn't one of them. He shouldn't be the one telling her this! _Don't those sodding Watchers teach them anything?_

He stares at her and his eyes are almost black now.

"What do you want me to say, Buffy? That sometimes I believed he did, and those were generally the times I ended up regretting the most, because he would find a way to make me pay for making him show he cared? Or that sometimes he touched me the way I wanted to be touched just to make me beg for more, just to prove that he could break me without even resorting to fists?"

_What do you want to hear that won't fuck up your black and white world, those well defined boundaries that don't exist, have never existed because it. just. isn't. that. bloody. simple!_

How can he tell her that he was lover and brother and father, God and the Devil, the beginning and the end?

Everything.

Angelus.

How can he make her see, goddamnit?

"You want me to tell you how sometimes I'd push all his buttons so that he _would_ beat me, just so that I'd know that there was something, _anything_ , that I could control, that _I_ could make him lose it. You always hurt the ones you love - haven't I told this already, Buffy?"

___________________________________________________________________________

  
I remember running hand in hand with Dru through the gas-lit streets of London one time, just enjoying the speed and the wind in my face and her company.

  
Incestuous siblings trading hushed promises of undying love and everlasting devotion in the dark, her eyes sane for once, _I knew you'd come, my love, my brave knight_ , her flesh cool as always. _Let's run away together, you and I!_ Giggles. _Daddy wouldn't like that, William._

"Where have you been, boy?" he roared the minute we returned.

"Took her out for a walk. She's been cooped up in here long enough."

"Is that right? Says who?" His voice dropped to that dangerous tone.

"I do." I didn't even try to duck the punch that knocked me out cold.

 

I woke to the sound of her screams and his grunts in the room next to mine. Door locked, nowhere to go, nothing to do but to sit and listen.

Was that pain in Drusilla's voice? Or pleasure?

Was there a difference?

 

He came in later.

"She's mine, boy, and don't you forget it."

Turned the key in the lock.

"Same way _you_ are."

___________________________________________________________________________

  
"I could tell you many unpleasant things. But what's the point of remembering that? We were what we were."

No white picket fence, no dinners by candlelight. Flesh ripped apart and blood flowing and being utterly possessed and knowing deep in your bones that, no matter what, you _belonged_.

"Bound together, me and him and Drusilla and even Darla who hated me with a passion. We were Blood."

That's it, isn't it?

"Nothing could come between us."

"Oh, yeah? As I recall, he _left_." She doesn't conceal the venom in her words.

He looks hurt. For the first time. He has that expression on his face, the one he had when she told him he was "just convenient". Unguarded, vulnerable. Fragile.

"Doesn't he always?"

Ah, he dishes it out just as bad as he gets it – he goes straight for the heart.

"The problem is that Soulboy is more of a prick than Angelus ever was. Or maybe he's just less intelligent, I don't know. He fails to realize that guilt redeems nothing. It's what you do that counts."

_And that's where you fail too. You still didn't understand it._

She looks about to cry, as if his words were said with the intention of hurting her.

He gets up to get another bottle.

"There you have it, Slayer. You wanted to know, now you do. Go away. I want to finish getting plastered."

___________________________________________________________________________

  
She kicks herself mentally on the way home.

How fucking stupid is she really?

Liar, liar, liar. She can't believe she swallowed all the crap he fed her before! And now, now... oh God! Her throat feels like it's all tied up into knots, like there isn't enough room for the air to get to her lungs.

She brushes the tears away, trying to smother them in, angry that she feels this hurt, that he holds this much power over her.

She really ought to know better by now! Why didn't she keep her big mouth shut?

_What the hell were you thinking! They are *vampires*!_

She remembers Angel's words.

_Sometimes the truth is worse. You live long enough, you find that out._

But how could she have known?

The books don't tell.

The books don't tell any of the stuff that really matters, she thinks with dismay.

The books describe torched villages and rampages through an entire continent. They don't tell of a young man drinking to forget a useless life and an uncaring father, yearning to see the world and prove himself.

They speak of a mad vampiress gifted with second vision and a preference for children. But there isn't a word about a girl who wanted to be pure in the eyes of the Lord.

They depict the way the victims were run through with railroad spikes. But there's no mention of a sensible poet with a torn heart.

They rattle on about bloodlines, all complete with fancy diagrams, but they don't say that after one hundred years apart vampires can still feel the call of the blood.

They don't say what was before and they never explain the whys.

 

And he didn't either.

He hasn't told her everything. She senses gaps and half-truths in the story and she can't sleep. She tosses and turns on the bed trying to make sense of things.

Somehow they never quite add up.

She doesn't buy any of the bullshit about how good a fledgling he was. Oh, she has no doubt he was the perfect pupil when it came to killing. Hasn't she experienced the results of the lessons first-hand? But the idea of Spike as the obliging little vampire is enough to make her laugh (hollow though it sounds to her own ears).

She needs to know the whys.

As in why did _he_ keep him in the first place?

Was it just for the pleasure of inflicting pain and making that sinful body bend to his will? Bruises on smooth white flesh and his lips swollen from the kisses and the bites and his body arching up, struggling to feel more, when she digs her fingernails into his tender skin and --

_You do it just like him._

The thought should send bells ringing in her head.

But it doesn't. She leaps into the next question without even pausing to consider the implications.

_Is this why you do it? To have something that belonged to him? To try to understand the creature he is, or, at least, the creature he was?_

But it doesn't work!

She doesn't understand them! None of them! She never did.

She didn’t understand Drusilla's adoring eyes ( _We can love quite well..._ ) while Spike threatened to kill her ( _...if not wisely_ ).

She didn't understand Angel's uneasy look as Spike's words crushed their feeble attempts of rationalizing their relation ( _Love isn't brains, children, it's blood..._ ). Later she had wondered how did he _know_? Because he undoubtedly did know, he understood perfectly the way things were between the two of them and she had found it so peculiar that Spike, of all people, would really comprehend. How naïve she was! He knew because he had been there _himself_.

And his words had more than one meaning, didn't they? Yes, she sees it now. She remembers how Angel's eyes had drifted everywhere trying to avoid Spike's steady gaze. Calling him on his bluff, reminding him of his true nature ( _...blood screaming inside you to work its will_ ).

Reminding him of the one thing they still shared.

Tempting him.

She feels the lure herself.

Calling, _calling_.

She needs to understand it.

And even as she denies it, she already knows what she'll do.

___________________________________________________________________________

  
Her words echo in the stone walls as if they've just been spoken.

_As I recall, he left._

Drusilla wailed for weeks on end.

"Where is he, William?"

And Darla came home every night with a crazed look in her eyes and refused to answer his questions.

"I don't want to hear another word about it! Not from you and not from her! Now shut her up or I will!"

He held her in his arms and rocked her gently, trying to quiet her. "Shush, princess, shush. It will be all right." He finally had to knock her unconscious, wondering who would do it for him when he'd lose it too.

 

"Blood is thicker than water, Will."

That's what he used to say.

_You better believe it!_ he thought when he found him again in Sunnydale. _Only you seem to have forgotten it!_

What was up with that pathetic display, with the boy under his arm? What did he think? That he wouldn't see, wouldn't feel, wouldn't *know* he was faking it?

"You think you can fool ME?"

And he did, he did!

_Oh, Angelus! What happened to you?_

He trashed all the TV's at the factory that night to prevent them from replaying the scene in their empty screens. Dru had just sat there and watched.

After that, things had gone from bad to worse.

 

Who was that stranger fucking his woman while he was stuck in a wheelchair? Who was that being obsessed with destroying the world and them along with it? What had happened to his Sire's passion for life? Where had it gone?

 

"I'm talking about putting him in the bloody ground."

And she had smacked him right across the face. _Blood on his mouth._ That had been the beginning of the end for him.

"I hate you."

"And I'm all you've got."

 

_All your fault, you sick bastard!_

That's the last thing he thinks before he passes out.

___________________________________________________________________________

  
When he returns to the crypt the following night he catches her scent. He went out to get booze with every intention of getting drunk tonight too.

But she's here. He never thought she would come back. Maybe she came to end things once and for all and put them both out of their misery.

He doesn't see her at first, only catches the flicker of light on metal as she strides out of the shadows in a blur of motion and presses the blade to his neck.

"I could kill you."

She is very close, her hand on his shoulder and her face almost leveled with his. Watching his reaction.

"I could cut you so deep that you'd bleed away all that stolen blood and there would be nothing you could do."

There's acceptance in his eyes. Worse.

"You've already cut deep, Slayer."

He wouldn't stop her. She already has his heart, why shouldn’t she take his life as well?

_Do it, take it all. There's nothing more I have to give you. If you want it, it's yours._

She presses the blade to his neck, cutting through the skin.

Just a small cut. He does nothing.

But when she lunges for the wound with her mouth, he tries to force her away. The bag falls to the floor, the sound of the bottles shattering echoing loudly in the empty walls, but he doesn't even hear it over the frantic tumult that goes on inside, both soul and demon screaming at him not to let her do this!

"Don't, don't...."

But she has him on a death grip and his words are lost and his struggles cease as he starts to feel the connection and she is seeking and the memories flood him.

How many times has this been done to him?

 

Sip.

_Blood of the lamb_ , Drusilla chanted. _You should offer it at the altars._

Sip.

Darla draining him almost dry, up against a wall. _Only thing you're good for_ , she scoffed before letting him fall to the ground.

Sip.

_You always did have the sweetest blood, Will._ His face so sad in those nights back in China.

 

_No, STOP!_ He pushes her away and falls to his knees, deprived of her support to balance him, trembling all over.

Damn it! He doesn't want to remember those nights, when everything was so different between them, his mouth soft and his hands gentle. When, despite the mind-numbing pleasure, he had known that something wasn't right. Something was irreparably broken.

He stares at the pieces of glass sparkling like tears on the floor.

The riot of feeling dims out and his ragged breaths slowly quiet as he is pulled back into the present. His eyes move up to her face. Her features are a mask of detachment but her eyes... her eyes burn into him.

He wonders what has she seen.

Has she seen them? His kith and kin, the ones he's tied to for all eternity, for better and for worse. Even if they all left him.

Or maybe she has seen herself, imprinted onto his mind's eye like she has branded him, marking him as hers as surely as any of the others have ever done, even if there are no scars on the outside that attest to it.

Has she seen the desperate love and need that scorch him inside and make him act the fool, make him turn the other cheek and beg for more, even if it is a slap in the face because he'll take whatever is given him?

And as an answer to his thoughts she raises her hand. But when she touches his cheek, it's a caress that's bestowed.

"My poor little lost demon." No traces of mockery in her voice. "You'd do anything for a little love."

"A little love is better than none at all, pet."

And he leans into her hand.


End file.
